Meena Kandasamy has written a novel that is moving, horrifying and poetic all in one. In sum, it is the story of an abusive husband. It puts the reader inside the skin of the woman, but not in any facile or melodramatic way. For example, in one section the wife, in order to cope, imagines herself playing a part in a film about an abuser and walks through the apartment setting up camera angles. The author also explores the cultural and family aspects of this kind of abuse in India. Her parents are slow to face reality, for example, and suggest the daughter's suffering is probably her own fault. Through it all runs Kandasamy's beautiful prose.
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